Support on the -- Click here to nominate us for Best Online Magazine!Close
Visit our Products section to learn more about architectural products.

Future Hotel Showcase / LAVA

By Nico Saieh — Filed under: Hotels and Restaurants , Interiors , Selected ,
 

As part of a research collaboration with the Fraunhofer IAO (Institute for Work Organization) LAVA has designed the Future Hotel Showcase Room, a demonstration project that investigates the interfaces between architecture, technology and the human body.

Architects: LAVA
Location: Duisburg, Germany
Project year: 2008
Project Team: Tobias Wallisser, Chris Bosse, Alexander Rieck with Kadri Kaldam, Martin Völkle, Jan Saggau
Photographs: Gee-ly

The Future Hotel forms part of the IAO Inhaus2, a program that focuses on meeting the expectations and requirements of hotel guests using tomorrow’s technology.

Blurring the definition between technology and interior space, the showcase room features the latest innovations in the fields of media and visual communication, along with prototypical products developed by renowned manufacturers.

Human comfort is of paramount concern in the Future Hotel Room. Technology has been designed to function almost invisibly in the background, whilst providing the opportunity for individual control of media, light and interior climate. Some of the room’s features include anti-jet-lag lights, active comfort bed, personal spa area, intelligent mirror and a large fully integrated media display window.

In creating the Future Hotel Room, LAVA has designed a spatial continuum, integrating each area of the team’s investigation into one single gesture, characterised by fluid transitions and accentuated singular edges. The free-form outer skin creates an infrastructure that becomes the interface between technology and the human body, and a combination of soft and hard materials offers a well-balanced transition between functional spaces.

Applying parametric design methods and semi-automated production techniques allowed LAVA an almost real-time translation of the original design concept. The collaboration between the project partners also generated many new insights and discoveries, many which will be implemented in LAVA’s upcoming hotel projects in the U.A.E. The vision of the Future Hotel Showcase could thus become a reality sooner than expected.

Tobias Wallisser, Chris Bosse and Alexander Rieck founded LAVA – Laboratory for Visionary Architecture, a worldwide operating network, just more than one year ago. The partners were responsible as associate architects for world-recognised structures such as the Water cube in Beijing and the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Germany. A couple of weeks ago, they unveiled the design for the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Abu Dhabi.

 

23 comments »

roadkill says:

Too many slits and areas for dust to accumulate, long run would be high maintenance

 
# November 10, 2008 at 15:36
keten says:

just beautifull!

 
# November 10, 2008 at 18:40
Evan Jones says:

It looks like something the imagineers at Disney might have concocted for a Hotel Room of the Future exhibit, all curvy and meaningless. Gee, mom, when I grow up will hotels look like this? All it needs is a thick layer of exaggerated rhetoric. Oh, wait. It has that. If the room came with a clicker for the built-in TV, a light switch and an adjustable thermostat, you could probably say that “Technology has been designed to function almost invisibly in the background, whilst providing the opportunity for individual control of media, light and interior climate.” Unfortunately, the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Abu Dhabi is this times ten.

 
# November 10, 2008 at 18:49
Thiefsie says:

Ha!

agreed

 
# November 11, 2008 at 02:19
adriana pestano mendoza says:

very imprees, the design and the renders everything is terrific

 
# November 11, 2008 at 10:20
freq says:

so true, Evan.. sad thing is, one might go as far as saying that the Disney imagineers were very aware of the distinction between vision and showmanship, while LAVA clearly pretend otherwise.

Where Disney always quite played with the notion of an exaggerated simulacrum that nonetheless contained elements of truth, we here find nothing but curve salad. it’so trite it almost hurts.

 
# November 11, 2008 at 11:59
hedgy says:

Evan Jones,
Respect!!! it couldn’t be sed any beter :) ..
ps: i like the part with the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Abu Dhabi :D

 
# November 11, 2008 at 12:03
keten says:

yeah… disney is the best!
I especilly like Mickey… and my favorite video game is Pong.

 
# November 11, 2008 at 12:20
sebo says:

könnt ihrs nicht einfach mal schön finden – ausprobieren selber machen – nicht auf dem alten sitzen bleiben -

 
# November 12, 2008 at 05:49
freq says:

wenn’s denn einfach nur gemacht wäre, um schön zu sein.. klar.
.. doch so viel selbstverliebtes gerede darum läd die schelte praktisch ein. ich find’s “schön”, aber das reicht mir deshalb nicht, weil es sich selbst so ernst nimmt – warum nur?

 
# November 12, 2008 at 06:42
schickse says:

wo bleibt der mensch bei all den formen?

 
# November 12, 2008 at 10:49
Eddie says:

nice sculpture..

 
# November 14, 2008 at 03:58
Thomas says:

Zaha Hadid – hotel ‘puerto america’ in madrid, 2005 ? ? ? ?

 
# November 18, 2008 at 04:18
Kim says:

Have a look at this, it explains what images can’t show about the project. It’s way more interesting than just a nice sculpture:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7795601.stm

 
# January 6, 2009 at 21:58
fengjun says:

so the best way to learn architecture is traveling,isn’t it?

 
# January 11, 2009 at 22:51
Kim says:

It is and will always be the best way to learn architecture. Seeing pictures can’t give a correct sense of the scale of things. In the old fashion way, traveling and sketching was The way of learning (see Corbusier sketchbooks for ex. or Tadao Ando’s)

 
# January 11, 2009 at 23:57
Evelien says:

It’s just silly to think blobby architecture is the future, yeah sure it was really fascinating in the nineties and still quite nice to look at now and then. But it was all because we COULD do it, with the help of computer design programs, that was what made it so new and great, but personally I don’t think it will last as the number one form of architecture.
(And to be quite honest, I do not notice a lot of difference with a normal hotel room?)

 
# February 23, 2009 at 08:23
2MACoff says:

и КУДРИ КУДРИ КУДРИ

 
# June 2, 2009 at 10:16
BROSALIN says:

кудри на…..

 
# June 2, 2009 at 14:49
2MACoff says:

ДААА…

 
# June 2, 2009 at 15:08
x says:

I like the bed and the chair

 
# June 20, 2009 at 08:14

Links to this article »

Leave a Reply »

Want to have your own avatar? Get yours at Gravatar.

Latest Comments »

thank god. finally someone is focusing...[+]
fantastic[+]
Looks like a squid.[+]
sigh. projects like this make me question why i’m...[+]
Absolutely horrendous.[+]
maybe it always has been ! just more out there now[+]
thats how everything seems to be nowadays. I think...[+]
I agree with you, there is much to like about...[+]
I find it really curious that critique has become so...[+]
Great! What are the dimensions of each floor? No...[+]
construction detail 1:10?[+]
any possibility of seeing some wall construction...[+]

Browse by category »

Our partners »

Browse by date »

Friends »

Proudly hosted at »